Which no doubt explains why Northern Piper hasn’t been by to tell us he knew all the answers. 
Just thinking about the thread… I wonder if the OP gets this indignant about, say, Belgium.
Great thread. Made me smile. 
I was born and raised in Detroit, the only place in the continental US where Canada is due south.
Does that means anything?
And with this single sentence, elfbabe demonstrates that she has truly assimilated our culture and is worthy of Canadian citizenship!
Actually, I was out watching the fireworks in front of the Lege.
Having read the quiz, I am now going to bed. 
I’m an Australian. I like Canada. They gave me Neil Young. What’s the USA done for me lately?
mm
When I was in Canada, I thought it was odd how that during anything Canadian on TV, like local news or local/regional commercials, they reminded people they were Canadians about 3 times a minute. Commercials would always start “Hello Canada!” and make references to what Canadians want. Local news was constantly making reference to Canada and Canadians - I mean, not even to identify where the story was, but like they were getting paid by the “Canada”.
heh heh 
No. Point Roberts, Washington State and Youngstown/Niagara Falls , New York (near the other end of Lake Erie) can claim the same distinction.
Given your use of the term “continental US”, Hyder, Alaska can also qualify.
Assuming you meant “contiguous US” however, I can see an argument disqualifying Point Roberts, Washington.
There is also the northern tip of Lake of the Woods County, Minnesota, a tiny little American enclave in far western Ontario that is seperated from the rest of Minnesota by the Lake of the Woods.
Muffin, I’m afraid I disagree with your answer to this question:
for the reason that the government of New France was established before the example you give. I’m not sure if the Frenhc commercial entities, like the Compagnie des Cent Associés, had legislative authority, but the Conseil Souverain de la Nouvelle France, which the King of France established in 1663, certainly had legislative and judicial authority.
Also, I’m not sure what the governmental structure for Acadia was, but since it was established before the colony at Quebec, there may have been an even earlier grant of legislative and judicial authority there.
I’m also curious about the answer to Muffin’s question 7. Is it a typo? I’m thinking the answer is:
Constitution Act, 1867, s. 91 and s. 92
But is it as cut and dried as that? Aren’t there a few other sections in the same general area of the document that deal with other “which are federal and which are provincial” questions? I’m thinking education, old age pensions, and so on.
(I’m being careful here because I think I know this stuff, but I’m not entirely sure.)
Based on the phrase “due south” Lake in the Woods fails to qualify. Prior to the admission of Alaska, “Minnesota” was the answer to the trivia question “what state is farthest North?” because Lake in the Woods is the only point in the contiguous states that projects north of the 49th Parallel, but none of the boundary zig-zags in such a way as to permit a line drawn from any point of Minnesota South to enter Ontario and the Western boundary is the Manitoba Provincial line running North-South, so it also cannot satisfy a “due south” requirement.
On the other hand, as The Flying Dutchman alluded, Saturna Island, BC and several other large rocks in Georgia Strait are due South of Point Roberts, WA and Chipawa, ON is due South of Niagara Falls, NY and the Niagara River is flowing North-Northwest at that point, leaving a stretch of Ontario terminating at Fort Erie, ON extending under a section of New York, including Grand Island, terminating in Kenmore, NY and a couple of river front streets of Buffalo, NY.
American TV does exactly the same thing, you just don’t notice it, because you’re so accustomed to it.
I get to watch a lot of American TV (I travel on business) and they never seem to run out of ways to insert “America” or “American” into everything, always, it seems, pointlessly. I guess marketeers have discovered that repeating “American” or “Canadian,” depending on the audience, makes viewers happy or sells product or something.
Damn, another childhood treasured belief shattered.
I was told that Detroit is the only spot in the contiguous (thanks The Flying Dutchman ) US where you could draw a line perpendicular to the border and have the line also be perpendicular to the Canadian border. (Is that properly called due south or what)?
This is what made me proud to be a Detroiter.
Plus the riots and Halloween mischief night fun of course.
I’ll bite - I respectfully submit you are wrong, Flying dutchman.
Canada existed from July 1, 1867, as a self-governing Dominion within the Empire. At various stages along the way, it acquired more and more self-governing powers, until today it is a completely independent, sovereign state. However, that did not mean that a completely new country was created each time Canada acquired new powers. To use the birthday analogy, one doesn’t re-start counting one’s age from the time one gets a driver’s licence, or from the time one is eleigible to vote, or from the time one reaches full legal capacity at age 18 (or 21, depending on the jurisidiction). Those are steps along the way to becoming a full adult, but one’s age still dates from the time of birth, which in the case of Canada, is July 1, 1867.
The other problem with saying that Canada’s birthday is December 11 (i.e the date for royal assent to the Statute of Westminster, 1931, as elfbabe has correctly identified), is that that Statute was simply a step along the way, rather than the date of Canada’s independence. There are three reasons why it does not amount to Canada’s birthday.
First and most important, Canada’s existence and basic structure as a federal state was set out in the Constitution Act, 1867. Canada had already existed for well over half a century, and the basic principles of the federation had already been established. The Statute of Westminster did not change that basic structure. The only formal addition to Canada’s constitutional powers in the Statute was the authority for the federal Parliament to legislate extra-territorially (s. 3). Many of the other provisions (such as the references to the Colonial Laws Validity Act in s. 2) simply recognized the pre-existing legal status, which the courts had already applied in consequence of the Constitution Act, 1867.
The second reason is that the Statute itself recognised that the Dominions already were completely autonomous countries, on a footing of equality with the United Kingdom. That constitutional status had been recognized at the Imperial conferences held in 1926 and 1930. The purpose of the Statute was to provide legal recognition of that pre-existing constitutional status for the Dominions.
That then leads to the next question: when did that change from self-governing Dominion to equality with the United Kingdom occur? Hard to say - it was a process of evolution for each of the Dominions, but World War I was a large component. Put bluntly, if you are willing to fight with the big boys, you are a country. Vimy Ridge is often cited as the moment Canada became a nation, just as Gallipoli is for the Aussies and Kiwis. As a result of their participation, each of the Dominions co-signed the Treaty of Versailles, as part of the British Empire. By the Imperial Conference of 1926, the Dominions had the status of independent realms; the Balfour Declaration of 1926 and the Statute of Westminster simply recognised that fact and updated the formal law and constitutional conventions to recognize it. So, I would submit that the Statute of Westminster, though a milestone in Canada’s constitutional history, does not constitute a “re-birth” of the country.
The third reason that the Statute is not the founding document of Canada is that it did not finish the job, formally. The British Parliament still retained the power to legislate for Canada, albeit with the qualification that it would only do so at the request of Canada (see s. 4). The British Parliament did not finally give up that authority until the passage of the Canada Act, 1982, s. 2, which came into force on April 17, 1982.
So, if you’re going by the formal creation of the country, it’s July 1, 1867, and Canada is 139 years old. If you’re going from the date of formal legislative sovereignty, it’s April 17, 1982, and Canada is only 24 years old. December 11, 1931 was just one date along the road.
Personally, I’ll stick with July 1. Happy Canada Day + 1!
Sppons, I think you’re right about the typo. I would also agree with your comment about additional powers. The Distribution of Powers is set out in its entirety by Part VI of the Constitution Act, 1867, not just sections 91 and 92:
[ul][li]Section 92A (which was added in 1982 as part of the patriation deal) sets out additionalpowers for the provinces in relation to non-renewable resources; [/li]
[li] Sections 93 and 93A define provincial and federal powers with respect to education, including separate and denominational schools;[/li]
[li] Section 94 (which has never been implemented) allows the common law provincies to surrender their jurisidiction over property and civil rights and court procedure to the federal Parliament;[/li]
[li] Section 94A (enacted in 1951; amended in 1964) gives Parliament jurisdiction to legislate with respect to old age pensions, without interfereing with any provincial law relating to pensions; [/li]
[li] Section 95 gives the Parliament and Legislatures concurent jursidiction over agriculture and immigration.[/li][/ul]
There are also the powers of the federal Parliament to amend certain aspects of the constitution of the federal government, and the provinces’ power to amend certain aspects of their provincial constitutions, found at
sections 44 and 45 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
However, these additional provisions are not cited nearly as often a sections 91 and 92 when dicussing the distribution of powers, so in that practical sense, muffin’s point is good.
I’m not sure what you were taught in class, but there are a couple of issues, here (with, perhaps, a saving point for you).
“Perpendicular to” simply means “at right angles to.” A line drawn perpendicular to any border will intersect it at a right angle on both sides of that border (provided you are not playing some game to draw the line through an angle or a curve). It has nothing to do with South or any other direction. A border running East and West (such as the long 49th Parallel) that has a line drawn perpendicular to it will have one segment heading due South and its opposite segment heading due North. Unfortunately, neither the Detroit nor the Niagara Rivers actually run due East and West, so that construction is just out.
Where you might get away with a claim similar to the one you heard would be to note that Detroit is the only place where one can drive South from the U.S. to enter Canada. Niagara Falls(x2) and Buffalo/Fort Erie each have bridges that basically run East and West, Port Huron/Sarnia* has a bridge running East and West. There is no bridge from Point Roberts. On the other hand, both the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel run generally North and South (they are not “due” North/South because the river does not run due East-West) but the cardinal compass points closest to each terminus is either North or South.
*Port Huron and all the villages along the St. Clair River are all “North” of Ontario in the sense that a line may be drawn south from the center of town and have it intersect some portion of Ontario, but the river is running from slightly East of North to slightly West of South and the Blue Water Bridge and the ferries (if they are still running) all cross East-West. Port Huron is genuinely North of the industrial section of Sarnia, but the Bridge connects the business districts and does not go South.
God help me, my last post has got to be one of the largest pieces of garbage ever written.
What I was envisioning is a perpendicular line running due south from an exactly east-west tangent line on the Detroit border, crossing the river, and then perpendicularly intersecting an exactly east-west tangent line to the Canadian border.
Why I thought this was meaningful is anybody’s guess.
Nonetheless thanks for your efforts tomndebb. And would you believe I have a degree in electrical engineering.
This is the internet. I don’t believe personal information about anyone.